I've talked on another thread about runnin' my keyboard & mic thru a Crate KXB25 Keyboard amp at my weekly jam ( we don't use a PA; the string players all use acoustic amps with mic channels ). The amp has a keyboard channel & a lo/hi z mic jack. Well, we're playin' an outdoor gig later this month, and I don't intend to play keyboards at all there ( it's only a 1-hour opening set and I don't wanna haul the gear ), so I thought I'd see how my Fake JT-30 Blues Blaster mic sounds through the KXB25. I've never had much luck runnin' that mic into SS amps. It sounded fine. I ran through a Danelectro Corned Beef reverb. I s'pose I could use my slap echo delay too.

As it turns out, I probably won't use it that way at this gig, 'cuz I'll jus' run my vocal mic into the mains and take a harp amp- prob'ly my Epi Valve Special-- to blow through. But, it's nice to know that if I jus' wanna play harp and sing into a mic without a PA that I can use that little rig.

I've been tryin' to lighten all my different gear setups since I turned 60 last month.

i got a bushman/nady torpedo a few years ago, and it just doesn't cut it in a p.a. i occasionally try it again and i have yet to try it in our small p.a. where i can tweak a channel. i have 2 ss amps that neither one sounds halfway decent with the torpedo. no idea what they made those elements from. pretty low response.my choice for a low z mic for harp is either a shure 545s or a sm57. plenty of punch and can be tailored easily on a p.a. channel.

Jbone, I think we agree on the importance of evaluating every piece of gear in your chain in the manner that you plan to use it. Shopping for additional gear based solely on somebody else's recommendation without taking your mic and effects boxes with you can be a disaster. You might get lucky, and you might not.I usually have 2 or 3 mics at my disposal when I'm playin' in unknown surroundings, especially with house PA, and now I see that I can't continue to dismiss using SS amps with Crystal mics... they might be alright some of the time. BTW, I was reading a newletter from a internationally known Aussie harper, and he apparently was on tour without a backup mic, because he made reference to a mic cutting out during a set, causing him to abandon harp for the set. I couldn't believe I read that; when I play out, I've got backup everything..amps,mics,tubes, cables, etc... pain in the butt.

well for me it depends. at worst i have 1 harp mic, no backup anything else past a cable maybe. BUT if need be i will address harp licks to the vocal mic and make the best of it, if say my mic or amp dies. this has happened only rarely, i've been lucky. there have been time si've brought just everydamnthing along and not needed any of it. but also times where i started out in the duo with the silvertone 15 watt and ended up with the 40w bassman. also once or twice over lo these last 18 years, i have had a night where if it wasn't a mic dying it was a harp, or a power failure at the club, etc etc. i once blew out FOUR harps in a night and had no spares. embarrassing and i never hit a stage after that without 2 of the high-mortality harps. along with playing my instrument with more respect and restraint!i have to always remind myself that most of my gear is t9o please me. most of the crowd has very little idea about superior tone. this latest cd wife and i did, was total acoustic. it has sold nicely so far and i expect it to keep moving well. that said, i do love my tube amps and hot mics.

I agree with you on one thing, a vocal mic (even if it's eq'd for voice) will work fine for harp. In fact, most of the times I've sat in with friends on stage, that's what I've used. I'm just not gonna walk out to the car and get an amp outa my trunk,etc... not practical for those "one set encounters".Aside: I played an outdoor festival on a levee with a subset of the guys I jam with, and we encountered one of "those nights", where a cable jack on a bass failed, we hit a bad cable, a battery died on an acoustic-electric, we encountered speaker interference from barge traffic, and I don't know what else. After ditching the acoustic for a Tele, replacing a battery, a cable or two, and reassembling the bass, etc., we got through the night without letting the crowd know what kind of problems we were dealing with.

When the night was over, we were all high-fiving each other-- not about how great we played, but how we salvaged the gig and overcame the equipment issues.